Songfacts®:

• This song, which Minutemen bassist and lyricist, Mike Watt, penned in a 'train of thought' style, mocks Punk bands who express sensationalistic political statements, without necessarily understanding the logic behind their sentiments.
• Watt told Flipside that he genuinely wanted Michael Jackson to sing this song: "Say Michael Jackson says, 'Oh Mike Watt, I'll sing one of your songs. What do you want me to say to the world if you think music's so powerful and important?' And I say, 'OK Mike sing this to them.' I was taking myself out of the Minutemen. When I'm in Minutemen I kind of think no one's listening almost. Especially live, they can't hear the words hardly." Watt revealed to L.A. Record that he even sent Jackson a copy of this song on cassette tape: "I sent him a cassette of it to the management on the record cover. I wrote him a note. 'This is a political song I think Michael Jackson should sing.' I never got written back."
• The lyric, "If we heard mortar shells, we'd cuss more in our songs, and cut down on guitar solos," is immediately followed by an extremely sarcastic guitar solo.
• Name-dropping Michael Jackson was, in part, a ploy by the Minutemen to get radio stations to notice this song. It worked! A whole lot of college radios played it in 1984.
• Watt lifted the line, "I must look like a dork," from an interview with Iggy Pop in Creem magazine. Watt told L.A. Record: "They'd have spiel with questions and answers and they'd bold out a quote. 'I must look like a dork.' I just lifted from Iggy. I thought Iggy was a balls-out dude, The Stooges a balls-out band. To be in that legacy, be part of a movement inspired by that band, so what if you look like a f*cking dork! You tell people you are and you still go for it." In 2003, Pop invited Watt to play bass for the newly reunited Stooges. Watt told Technorati that it was a great honor to play with the influential Punk band: "It really is amazing, I would have never imagined playing with The Stooges. They're all great teachers to me, and I love that music."
• Double Nickels on the Dime, Minutemen's third studio album, is widely regarded as one of the most influential records of the 1980s. The double album, which is renowned for its expansive sound and lyrical content, was ranked at #411 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. In our interview with Mike Watt, he told us that he considered Double Nickels... to be the best record that he has ever played on. Watt explained: "That was definitely a hill. That was a peak of ours. And now looking back even more so. But what can you do about that? The worst thing to do is stop trying. So I just keep trying."